How Your Property Can Avoid a $700 Million Breach Pay Up

“Equifax will pay up to $700 million in fines and monetary relief to consumers over a 2017 data breach at the credit reporting bureau that affected nearly 150 million people,” write Avie Schneider and Chris Arnold in their recent NPR article entitled “Equifax To Pay Up To $700 Million In Data Breach Settlement.”

According to the article, “The proposed settlement, which is subject to approval by a federal court, was announced Monday by the company, the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.”

“The consumer data exposed in the breach included Social Security numbers, birthdates and addresses and, in some cases, driver's license numbers,” Schneider and Arnold explain.

The NPR piece continues “CFPB Director Kathleen Kraninger said the settlement includes $425 million to cover the ‘time and money [people affected by the breach] spent to protect themselves from potential threats of identity theft or addressing incidents of identity theft as a result of the breach."

“Equifax also agreed to pay $175 million to the states and $100 million to the CFPB in civil penalties,” the article notes.

According to Schneider and Arnold, “starting in January, Equifax ‘will provide all U.S. consumers with six free credit reports each year for seven years,’ the FTC said. That's in addition to the free annual credit reports that Equifax, and the two other nationwide credit reporting agencies — Experian and TransUnion — currently provide.”

Proactive Operations Can Avoid a Costly Breach

Gulp.

Now, would that not be a hard pill to swallow if you had to share this news with your boss?

We can only imagine.

Thankfully, this isn’t your property.

But that doesn’t mean your property is safe from a breach and extreme risk.

That’s a hard pill we swallow every day.

It gives us a purpose to wake up in the morning and put everything we’ve got into figuring out ways to help properties like yours employ Proactive Operations.

And we’ll write articles like this one until we’re as blue as our logo – or every property on earth is a Proactive one.

We know what it takes to avoid a $700 million breach pay up like Equifax’s.

Over to You

Equifax is to pay $700 million in its data breach settlement. We bet you’d agree that would be a huge pill to swallow knowing you have to share that information with your boss. Thankfully, you don’t.

But the threat of a breach and extreme risk is always trying to make its way at your property’s doorstep. You don’t always see it either. That’s why we’re turning as blue as our logo to share how important employing Proactive Operations is for your property’s risk defense.